In-house vs. Outsourced: Considerations for B2B Website Design
Whether you want to bring your website into this decade or just improve the user experience, one of your first decisions is going to be whether you can manage the website development internally, or if you are going to outsource. There is no doubt that an in-house website development can save a company over 50%, but if not done properly, the cost could be catastrophic.
There are a few considerations that can help you make a more informed decision about whether to keep the website development in-house or outsource.
Here they are:
Internal resource evaluation – Take a look at the skill sets that your employees possess. Do you have these type of people to create your website development team?
- Marketer with online expertise to help build web strategy, through defining target audiences and their specific needs.
- Graphic designer who understands the importance of designing a website for ease of use and information finding.
- Web developer to produce code for the multitude of device screen sizes and incorporate a content management system for easy website updates.
- Copywriter to write website content using the brand tone and incorporating persona research.
- Project manager to keep the project on budget and within the established timeline.
If you are like most small- to medium-sized businesses, you may have an employee with a few of the skill sets required for a website development team. As skilled as they may be at making updates to your existing website, the design and development of a website from scratch requires both creative and technical expertise. It is extremely difficult to find individuals that design and code well.
Graphic designers may be able to develop beautiful website designs but fail to translate that to efficient coding. While web developers produce beautiful code, there designs tend to be hard to use.
A one-person web team may be better used for being the project manager and outsourcing the web development to a team of professionals that offset any skill set deficiencies with your internal staff.
Evaluate time commitment – Website development is not a side project, it requires a significant investment in time and focus. Can you devote staff time from other projects to your website development project?
Analyze your staff’s track record for on time and within budget project deliveries.
After an evaluation of in-house resources, you may find that you have some internal resources that can be utilized. If that’s the case, then you could just outsource the parts of the web development where your in-house resources are the weakest.
Whether website development is done in house, or outsourced, it is never free. There are factors that affect cost of website development in both options. It can be costly to pull in-house resources off projects, plus in-house website development can become costly when the schedule and budget are not followed.
Outsourced website development costs are more predictable since agencies have a more repeatable and reliable process they utilize everyday.
Website not working like it should? Make sure you are implementing these 7 elements to turn your website into a lead generation machine.
